


A Metaphor

by CatrinaSL



Series: Things You Said [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Hotels, Kissing, Metaphors, Pizza, Rain, SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS, things you said
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7479432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatrinaSL/pseuds/CatrinaSL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy feels as useless as the rain that refuses to cool a hot summer day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Metaphor

**Author's Note:**

> things you said in a hotel room

Darcy sighed at the rain.

"What is it?"

She sighed again. "Everything," she replied.

"That's specific."

She turned to glare at him. "It's just—" Thunder crashed, interrupting her thought.

"You sure you don't want to come inside where it's cool?" he asked.

"No. The rain is a metaphor. I need to be near it; it keeps me angry."

He frowned, wandering nearer to lean against the sliding door she'd left open. "...Huh?"

"We thought there'd be something here. I thought I'd be useful for once, with Jane off not being a goat on Asgard. But there's nothing. And I'm not. They sent us out here for no reason."

Clint tried to draw the parallels that Darcy was obviously drawing, but failed. "But how is that like the rain?"

"It's hot," Darcy pointed out, not for the first time during their trip. Before he could articulate his confusion, she continued. "It was hot before it rained, and it's still hot now. It looks dark and cool out here, but it isn't. When it stops raining, the clouds will go away, and it'll be hot some more. There's no point to the rain, but it's there. It's raining, even though it won't make a difference."

Clint nodded, finally understanding. "Would you rather it was still sunny?" he asked. 

Darcy sighed again; the only thing she'd been doing back at base was telling people to stop asking her questions that she couldn't answer about Jane's research.

"If it was still sunny, then I'd be complaining about the fact that this crappy hotel has a pool with no water in it." Clint stepped back as she reentered the realm of air conditioning and slid the door shut on the balcony. "If Tony'd sent us out here, he'd have set us up at a place with room service."

"And nicer sheets," Clint added.

Darcy flopped into the uncomfortable chair next to the tiny table that was shoved in the corner of their small room. "So do you want to order pizza or something, or should we pack up and head to the airport and see if we can get an earlier flight back?"

Clint watched her kick her legs restlessly and wondered why Hill had sent  _ him _ along with Darcy on this wild goose chase. Hill (along with most of the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.) knew about his crush. If she really thought there was something to find here, she could have sent a whole squad of agents, or maybe, more helpfully, some  _ actual _ scientists? 

He raised an eyebrow. Was Hill trying to...?

She was. She definitely was.

"Pizza sounds good," he replied, then flopped down himself on the end of one of the generically uncomfortable beds. "We could find some trashy TV or a movie to watch."

"How often does S.H.I.E.L.D. spring for pay-per-view?" Darcy wanted to know.

He shrugged. "Depends on the movie, but we probably shouldn't watch anything too racy, or  _ you'll _ be the one explaining to Sitwell why you and I rented a skin flick."

Darcy laughed for the first time since they'd arrived, and grabbed her phone to dial up the local pizza place.

Four hours, three pizzas, and two movies later, a light, refreshing evening breeze drifted in through the open sliding door. 

"Maybe this trip won't be worthless after all," Darcy said, shifting herself into a sitting position and leaning back against the headboard.

"What do you mean?" Clint asked, his head on the pillow beside her.

"Well, for one thing, it isn't sweltering out anymore," she replied, waving a hand at the open door.

"And the other thing?" he wondered as he fiddled with the remote, looking for a specific 90s movie on the Disney channel.

Darcy didn't respond, so he switched off the TV and looked up at her.

She was looking back. Specifically, at his lips.

"Uh, what's the other thing?" he repeated.

"How weird would it be if we kissed?" she wanted to know.

Clint considered this. "I don't think that's the word I would use."

"What word would you use?"

Honesty, then. "Uh... 'awesome.'"

"Well, obviously," she said. "But I mean, like, at work. It would make things weird."

"Oh, um..." The S.H.I.E.L.D. Rules Against Fraternization flashed through Clint's head. "No. Yeah. Yes. Definitely."

Darcy wrinkled her nose. "Is it weird that I still kind of want to anyway?"

"That's not the word I—"

"Yeah, okay, awesome," she agreed, interrupting him. "But just because we can, does it mean we should?"

Clint took a deep breath and then nodded. "You're right."

Darcy nodded along with him. "I am," she said. "It would make everything... weird."

"Awesome," Clint corrected.

"Weird-awesome," Darcy allowed.

"Right."

"So."

"Yep."

"We should probably go to bed," she said.

"We should."

"So that means you should go over there," she informed him, pointing at the other bed.

"I was here first," Clint replied.

Darcy acknowledged this, but he could tell she didn't like it. Clint grinned at her anyway, and she got up to turn the air conditioner back on and shut the balcony door.

She pulled the curtains closed, and Clint turned the light off when she sprawled face first across the other bed.

"Hey, Darcy," he said after a few minutes of staring at the ceiling in the dark.

"Mmmnf?" was her muffled reply.

"Sorry we didn't find anything," he told her. "Sorry there wasn't any Einstein-Rose whatever."

"Oh, I  _ found _ something."

Clint frowned. "What did you find?"

He heard Darcy shift onto her back. "I found out you like me almost as much as I like you."

He wasn't sure what to say to that. "B—wha?"

"Yeah," she said. "I've had a huge crush on you for, like, months. Jane's been trying to get me to ask you out since our second week."

"But... I..." he protested.

Darcy clicked the light back on. "Okay, so just gimme the cons. No pros, and I'll be able to keep my hands to myself. Probably."

Clint's mind went blank at this information. "There are cons," he told her. "Lots of them. Like..."

"Like what?"

"We'd get reprimanded," he said. "Agents aren't supposed to... be awesome. Together."

"Technically I work for a contractor," Darcy reminded him.

"It might create a tense work environment?" Clint tried.

"Tense, like, 'oh we made out that one time and now we can't look each other in the eye' tense? Or tense, like, 'I can't wait to pull you into the supply closet and tear your clothes off' tense?"

Clint swallowed. "Both... potentially... not necessarily in that order."

Darcy nodded as a peal of thunder shook the hotel. "Is that it?"

"That's... all I can think of right now," Clint admitted, his eyes on the ceiling.

She sighed. "Okay." Then she clicked the light off again.

Clint lay there in the dark, mentally kicking himself and cursing Hill, as he anticipated what she would say when they returned: "I go to all the trouble of sending you two to the middle of nowhere together and you  _ still _ don't make a move? Come on, Barton, just get it over with and—"

"Hey Clint?" Darcy said, interrupting his thoughts.

"Yeah?" he replied, too quickly.

The light came back on. Darcy was still sitting on the edge of her bed, looking at him. 

"Those are stupid cons," she said.

"I know," he said, sitting up to face her, "but all my S.H.I.E.L.D. training is yelling 'Clint, no!'"

She grinned. "How about, 'Darcy, yes?'" she asked, leaning toward him.

He watched her move closer, stopping an inch away from his lips and raising both eyebrows, silently asking for his input.

"Darcy," he whispered, "yes."

Outside, the evening rain cooled the heat of the summer day.

**Author's Note:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com/post/147392816548/a-metaphor)
> 
> Tumblr: [catrinasl](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com)
> 
> Twitter: [@Catrina_SL](http://twitter.com/Catrina_SL)


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